Falling
by Femme Bono
Summary: Quirky, thieving Parker could never fall for a stuffy suit. Could she?
1. Chapter 1

There was nothing attractive about Jim Sterling. He was pompous and just so…so…_samey,_ Parker thought. Average looks, average hair. Average. She snapped her line and double checked her harness. Not special. Except for his smirk. And except when he was annoying. Annoyingly clever, but annoying anyway. Parker had met so many cops like him in all her run-ins with his type. Hearing his smug voice in her ear only made her eyes narrow that much more in irritation, her mouth set in a grim line before she dropped into a graceful rappel down the sheer face of the building.

"Like clockwork," he had promised. "This should all go like clockwork." Annoying cliché, if there ever was one.

Yet when she slanted her legs into an L to stop the momentum of the rappel, Hardison was not there in the van. He should have been waiting, was the one thought she had before a blow struck her in the head and she blacked out.

When she woke it was in a dark room in a strange place and she at once started struggling to rise, only to wince and hiss in pain when she moved.

"Parker?" Sophie's voice came from her right. It sounded gravelly and a slight rustling told Parker that she had likely been sleeping in a chair by the bed.

"Sophie?! Where am I? This is not a hospital. Is it?" she said, panic leaking into her voice.

Just then a slice of light pierced the darkness as a door cracked open.

"Is she awake?" Sterling said from the hall.

"What's going on?" she cried, still struggling to move and wincing again as a sharp pain left her gasping and clutching her head.

A light switched on beside her and she covered her eyes, groaning.

"You, it seems got the brunt of the attack when everything went tits up at the Mercer building," said Sterling as he sidled in, his hand in one pocket while he raised a glass of scotch to his lips with the other. Sterling placed the glass on a mantel in front of the bed and gazed at the fire for a moment while Sophie caught Parker up on what went down while she had blacked out. Everything about their latest heist had gone sideways from the jump.

As it turned out, the mark they were after knew they were coming and no one knew why or who had tipped him. Parker watched Sterling as Sophie filled her in on what happened. His jaw grated and clenched as she watched his profile, while Sophie talked about the security guards that blocked off the alley where Parker should have been able to make her escape. Sterling himself was the one who waded in and came upon one of them knocking Parker unconscious after she dropped into her exit point.

When Sophie finished, she rose to get a glass of water for Parker and to tell the others that Parker was awake. Sterling turned at last. It seemed to take forever for his gaze to move up from the foot of the bed and finally meet hers. When he looked at her at last, there was no trace of a smirk, no smugness. He looked naked somehow, and Parker could not place just why she felt that way.

"Parker…," he began. After what seemed like ages he struggled with the words. "I'm sorry. This was my cock-up, it wasn't supposed to go this way. _Believe_ me. I will found who did this, and I'll bring the bugger in."


	2. Chapter 2

Cht 2

Parker snuggled deeper under the covers and groaned softly. She was miserable inside and out, not likely to feel better anytime soon. They kept a close watch on her through the night, Sophie especially, and she only slept fitfully at best. When morning finally broke, Sophie quietly let herself out of the room. She heard their voices murmuring in another part of the house, but what they were saying was indistinct. Then, nothing. There was the faintest clink of dishes and the sweet smell of…pancakes?!

Parker crept gingerly out of bed and planted her feet almost directly on top of something soft and squashy. She yelped, cringed at the noise and looked down. Someone had brought her bunny slippers from her apartment. She slid her feet in and shuffled to the doorway on the opposite wall. She could see a dark walnut cabinet with a raised frosted glass sink mounted on top. Ice blue towels hung on a rack nearby and as she stepped in and flipped the light, she winced at the brightness. The powerful need to pee overtook her timidity and she scooted over to relieve herself, all the while taking in the immaculately appointed surroundings. Sterling sure had nice digs. She wondered idly where the safe was and who constructed it.

When she was finished, Parker tiptoed down a wood floored hallway, creeping closer to the smell of pancakes. Now that her first concern had been taken care of, her belly grumbled ominously and she wrapped an arm across it bracingly. The long button-up shirt she was wearing was not hers and she assumed rightly that it was on loan from Sterling since she was housed in one cushy apartment that was apparently his.

As she crossed a swank living area, replete with white leather couches and dark wood tables, she wondered again where the safe was. Hearing the sounds of sizzling oil and the chink of dishes, Parker turned right and passed a large dining area, again with dark grained walnut furniture and set with gleaming cranberry colored plates. What guy has a house this neat, she wondered. It was _not_ normal.

"Parker, are you up and about?"

She paused as she heard Sterling's voice much closer than she had anticipated. He poked his head around the corner she had just been about to turn; he looked her up and down, his gaze settling on her slippered feet, and shook his head.

"You should still be in bed, you're nowhere near ready to be up and about," he said, reasoningly. He still stood craning his head around the corner, wearing a claret-colored oxford shirt and a tea towel draped over his shoulder.

"Why are you here still?" she blurted out. Of all the team, she thought surely someone would have stayed. Didn't he work? Wasn't Interpol calling?

"Well, as it happens," he said, poking his head back into the kitchen, "I am better off here seeing to you, and not out and about, as it was all discussed this morning."

"I don't need babysitting," she began grumpily, a pout already forming. She cut herself off as she swayed, a wave of dizziness overcoming her. She floor tilted up to meet her and she heard Sterling swear heartily as his arms came around her, lifting her up even as her eyes lost focus.

"Don't need a sitter, eh?" Sterling snarked and he carried her to the sofa. "Says the girl with bunnies on her feet and a love of sugar to rival a five year-old."

He plopped her unceremoniously down facing the dining area and pulled a sapphire-colored throw over her legs. "Now, you'll take some tea and toast before we try you on any sugary cakes and syrup. If you keep that down, you can have your bloody pancakes."

Parker's pout resettled itself and she felt herself moving into a full on sulk. Sterling sighed and passed a hand over his face, propping a hip on the edge of the sofa next to her.

"You have a concussion," he began. "You cannot be up and about, as you'll have dizzy spells and we have to monitor your sleeping for a while to make sure you don't go too deep with it. Someone has to be with you at all times. Apparently the mark knew I was up to something and was close enough to place it to the day you arrived. They aren't aware of any of the rest of the team as yet, but as it was your face they saw and they know you were working for me, that puts you and I out of it for a bit."

The sulk solidified and her mood fully soured with it. "So you mean I'm stuck here with you?"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, princess, yes," he hissed between gritted teeth. "I don't expect you to be grateful or anything…"

He launched himself up off the couch and moved to the kitchen muttering darkly. The dish rattling began again, more forcefully as cupboard doors slammed and Parker heard a rack sliding. Then a curt "bugger" as a dial clicked and the fire alarm blasted. Parker grabbed the throw pillow behind her and wedged her head between it and the back of the couch. The dull headache she had awakened with was now throbbing with the shrill wail of the alarm. She watched through slitted eyes as Sterling drug a chair out of the dining nook and scraped it across the kitchen floor. More swearing and a grunt later, the alarm chirped once and was cut off.

If Parker hadn't been in such pain, she might have giggled, but instead she lapsed into a thoughtful silence as she considered the events of the past twenty-four hours. True, it was all Sterling's fault she had been attacked, it was his screw-up that got her made, and she was sitting with a splitting headache after a failed job. And yet, he housed her here, he apologized which was way beyond anything she would ever expect from evil Nate…good Nate, maybe, but not evil Nate. He promised her breakfast, even pancakes if she could keep it down, and—

"Hey! Who brought my slippers anyway?" she called faintly.

"Hardison," he called gruffly. He reappeared shortly thereafter with a small plate and a cup. "He went to that warehouse you call a flat and brought some of your things back, and Spencer told me you would favorite pancakes or cereal for breakfast, the more sugary the better."

Sterling set the cup on the coffee table and again propped a hip on the couch next to her. "You'll eat this and keep it down before you get anything sweet. I don't care whose cock-up this is, I won't have you ruining the carpet. It's Uzbekistani. So." He placed the plate of toast on her drawn up knees meaningfully and watched as she daintily picked up a triangle and nibbled it.

"My head is killing me," she said softly.

Sterling raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. "Right, should have considered…" he leaped up and wandered off down the hallway, returning momentarily with a small vial in his hand. "All you get is Tylenol, I'm afraid. Aspirin or Motrin will only make any bruising worse. And another ice pack is in short order. We left off with that last night so you could sleep."

He eyed the half-empty plate as he spoke and nodded. "Right, that'll do I suppose. Well then, pancakes and sausages it is." He placed the vial of Tylenol next to the cup on the table and sauntered off to fix another plate, one hand casually in his pocket.

When he returned, Parker had placed the plate of toast on the table and sat sipping the tea. She had already downed three Tylenol and between that and the food her headache was slowly starting to ebb.

"You'll have to sit up for this one," Sterling began even as she straightened in her seat.

"So what's it to be?" he continued as she poured a massive dose of syrup over her food. "Read a book? Watch some telly? Want my laptop?"

"Cartoon Network," she said through a mouthful of gooey pancake goodness.

"Of course," he answered resignedly. This was going to be a long trial, Sterling thought grimly as he reached for the remote.

"Thank you," Parker said softly.


End file.
